absinthe
by Ivory Muse
Summary: There's a reason why Dallas hates hair grease.


_brownsville, brooklyn— may 15th, 1959_

He doesn't like the taste of beer, but there's nothing else to do except drink, slumming around in Jack's cramped, sweltering apartment. If he turns the bottle down they'll laugh and call him a kid, a little fag who can't hold his liquor— and most of all, he hates being mocked. Needs their _respect_ like oxygen. So he sits on the edge of a worn mattress and lets the alcohol burn its way down his throat and listens as he takes slow sips, because listening is what he's best at, lately.

(And, yeah, he should probably be at school, but he's already on his second tour of the sixth grade and rapidly careening towards a third— the things he's learning on the streets after he slips out in the morning are so much more important than fucking pre-algebra and Roman history that the place ought to count itself lucky he ever bothers to show up. He should probably be at home, but his old man's too joshed half the time to notice his absence and doesn't even care where he is when he's sober.)

"I'm tellin' you," Costello says from his place on the floor, staring up at the ceiling, "we got a bone to pick with Sixx's outfit. Since Rothstein went upstate they done gone to shit— north of the Ford lot's our territory, and guess who I found passing around their shit weed yesterday? We oughta make an example out of them, bust a few heads. They're like roaches— turn on a light and they'll all go runnin' for cover."

"Dumbass," Hammer— the oldest at twenty-two, nervous tension written all over his skinny frame— snarls. He watches the grimy window as if he expects a bullet to come through any minute now. "Without that kike they got nothing, he's the whole brains of the operation. Let 'em wreck themselves— no need to put our necks on the line. Even Mouse knows that, and he's a damn baby."

 _I'm not some baby_ , Dallas almost protests, the dirty fire pooling in his veins making him more daring than usual, at the same time as Costello rises to his feet with clenched fists. _And you're just a pussy coward bitch who's scared of blood, so there._ God, how he wishes he could just smash in everybody's faces who ever doubted him. But his position here is still shaky, even after he passed his jump-in with flying colors, and he didn't get to be part of this crew by shooting off his mouth like some smartass kid— not like _Costello_ , who's been in the pen twice and learned little but how to ferment his hatred. One day he'll be taller, stronger, able to silence anyone with a single blow— for now, he sits quiet, keeps his jaw and ribs intact.

He sweeps the sticky bangs off his forehead. "Hammer's right," he makes himself say, affecting a wise, reasoned tone. "Last thing we need is more of us in Rikers, 'specially over some fucking weed." As much as he enjoys a fight, the primal thrill of dominating men twice his age and size (because he's just _that_ good), their numbers are too damn low to justify a blowing-off-steam, sick-of-staying-in raid, anyway.

"Don't get greedy, Mouse," Jack chides, swiping the bottle from his grasp with the ease of a panther and shoving it towards Costello. He's the one who found Dallas beside a convenience store with a pack of stolen smokes in his grimy pocket, and smiled when he asked how a kid as sneaky as him would like bigger prey than chickenshit cashiers— which, for a kid who'd already spent a night in jail by the age of ten and come out on top, didn't seem too bad a prospect. "The fuck are you talkin' business for? I was gonna bring my girl Britta over here, have us a tuff party. She's a real fox— I might even be willing to share."

(Jack started calling him Mouse because he's short and skinny and tow-headed, and it felt too much like a term of endearment for him to protest the unflattering nickname. _He_ calls him a walking abortion.)

"Please," Hammer scoffs, lighting up a blunt and blowing out sickly-sweet smoke. "The only broad you could get is one of them colored whores hanging 'round 3rd and Nevins."

Jack throws an empty bottle at him and, being stone drunk, misses spectacularly. "Listen, Mouse, when d'you turn... thirteen?"

"In November."

"For your birthday I'mma give you a real pretty girl, you dig? Her name's Cass. She'll show you a nice time."

He's not too sure whether he wants that kind of nice time for his birthday, or how he could get out of it— he hasn't even _kissed_ a girl yet— but he still opens his mouth to thank him when Hammer lets out an obnoxious snort. "Cass ain't some pedo. What's she gonna want with him?"

"She'd fuck a _dog_ for a couple of twenties," Jack says, waving his hand in dismissal. "'Sides, Mouse here's practically a man— I dunno what the hell you keep talkin' about."

"You think?" Dallas asks, eager in spite of himself, and tries to sit up straighter.

"Sure swing a switch better'n half the guys in this outfit, and God knows you're twice as good at dodging the fuzz." Jack leans over to ruffle his hair. "We just need to get you a haircut, dammit. A cool one, not this kindergarten BS you have goin' on. Costello, gimme the scissors."

He stumbles back home at two in the morning. His dad laughs himself sick when he sees it, asks who the hell took a weedwhacker to his head and doused the result in grease, but he doesn't ask where Dallas has been.


End file.
